For many years, Chris Troupis has served as the (largely uncompensated) legal counsel for Idaho Chooses Life. He has donated countless hours to our efforts to secure greater legal protections and recognition of the humanity of Idaho’s preborn citizens. And we are not the only charitable organization that Troupis has helped during his distinguished legal career.

The present Attorney General, Lawrence Wasden, is pro-Life. He has shown up for work every time Idaho has been sued by one abortion group or another and defended the work of the pro-Life community through the Idaho Legislature.

While he has sometimes lost those legal efforts, that can not be fairly or easily laid at his feet. Despite our conservative values and culture, Idaho is oppressed by the most hostile federal judges in the country. Idaho’s district court judge, Lynn Winmill, is every bit as liberal as the 9th Circuit. Wasden’s burden, therefore, in defending even the most modest pro-Life protection against the Abortion Lobby is a heavy one.

And yet, there have been frustrations in dealing with the Attorney General’s office. We believe a better job can be done in securing the right-to-life for all Idahoans.

Chris Troupis will be a champion for the preborn child and a hard-working advocate for Idaho’s values.

Chris is a fine attorney with a great heart. He will bring a fresh vision and new energy to Idaho’s second-most important constitutional office.

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State Treasurer Ron Crane does not have a contested primary this spring, but a word about his fine public service is in order.

Crane has served Idaho for decades, going back to his many days in the Idaho House of Representatives. He was a leader of conservative forces then, and continues so today. Crane was one of the very first legislators to receive our “Friend for Life” Award in 1998 for his leadership in securing a Ban on Partial Abortions in Idaho.

Over the past several years, Crane has endured some rather unseemly sniping from anonymous Republican legislators pursuing an agenda yet to be revealed. They have tried to insinuate that Crane is somehow incompetent or even unethical. After the headlines appear in liberal media outlets, the facts regarding various allegations never seem to garner the same attention.

Be sure of one thing: Crane is a hardworking, highly ethical public official who has done well by the citizens who have seen fit to re-hire several times as State Treasurer. We have no doubt they will do so again this year, as he will face one Democrat or another this fall.

While we certainly endorse Crane’s re-election, this posting is not so much an endorsement as it is a public “thank you” for his many years of conservative leadership.

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Our friends at Operation Rescue have been digging into the documents filed by Planned Parenthood in its lawsuit to block the new Texas law requiring abortionists to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. Apparently the huge Abortion Chain revealed that it was aware of some 210 Texas women and girls admitted annually to hospitals because of complications arising from abortions performed at their own clinics.

This tidbit is highly significant. It is, of course, very difficult to come by data relating to the medical histories and complications of women undergoing abortion. In addition to the standard protections surrounding patient privacy, there is a huge wall of secrecy erected by federal courts to safeguard the so-called “right to abortion” and to shield women from any possible social stigma related to their decision to end their babies’ lives.

Operation Rescue extrapolated the data to find that perhaps 1000 Texas women are hospitalized across the state because of problems associated with botched abortions. Each year.

That is a rather staggering piece of data, and would seem to put the lie to the notion that legalized, mechanized destruction of preborn children is somehow “safe” and free from physical and emotional consequence.

The rate of complications for chemical abortions – using RU-486 – is many times higher than that of surgical abortion.

Operation Rescue goes on to project that if the Texas experience is applied to all 50 states, American women could be suffering terrible health consequences as a result of legalized abortions. They believe it is likely that tens of thousands of women and girls – each year – could be rushing to emergency rooms and hospitals as a result of submitting to the deceptions of Planned Parenthood.

The Board of Idaho Chooses Life has voted to endorse the candidacy of Rep. Lawerence Denney for the position of Secretary of State.

Denney has long served Idaho through his various roles in the Idaho House of Representatives. Throughout his long public service, Denney has been an unapologetic advocate for Idaho’s preborn children. He was one of the first officials to receive our “Friend for Life” Award back when he served as Majority Leader in the House.

Denney’s opponents in this race, Evan Frasure and Mitch Toryanski, are both fine gentlemen who have previously been endorsed by this organization for other offices. But in this race, Denney’s record of public service earns him our support.

During the time that Denney served as Speaker of the Idaho House, the pro-Life movement saw unprecedented gains in establishing protections for preborn children in Idaho law. That was no accident. Lawerence made it his business to create a welcome environment; every reasonable proposal to save lives was given his personal attention.

Much has been made by the liberal press and his political enemies over his very narrow defeat to a fourth term as Speaker in December of 2012. Some have even tried to suggest that Denney had lost the confidence of his colleagues, or had somehow failed to properly fulfill his duties as Speaker.

Balderdash.

Lawerence Denney is a public leader of unusual integrity and humility. He carries the mantel of public power with a down-to-earth graciousness that is truly remarkable. He will bring that character to the office of Secretary of State.

Denney lost the Speakership for one and only one reason: An unprecedented campaign by special interest groups in the 2012 elections to elect legislators willing to support their plans to impose ObamaCare upon the People of Idaho. These interests, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, succeeded in bringing a gaggle of freshmen into the House. By combining their votes with House Democrats, they were able to create the ObamaCare Exchange. It is that simple.

Idaho deserves to have a statewide leader of Denney’s caliber overseeing our election process and serving us on the Land Board.

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Today millions of Americans will be united in commemoration of the historical event of Jesus Christ’s resurrection. To Christians, this act marks the culmination of the life of one who came as the Lamb of God to fulfill the requirements of the Mosaic Law for the propitiation and expiation of mortal sin. To adherents of Christ and His teachings, such a belief is fundamental, and consequently, inviolable and sacrosanct. But regrettably, there are many who so believe, who project their private personal theology onto their public political beliefs with similarly unyielding intransigence. There must be a distinction between what is private and public, for politics is not a religion.

Religion is personal and private, and between a man and his God, even if one’s “god” is secular humanism. Those who are devout in their religion will not compromise or equivocate in those personal convictions, and frankly, they’d be hypocritical if they did. But what happens when such a personal religious conviction is projected into public politics?politics

Many of the principles of political ideologies have their roots in theological tenets, yet when they’re applied politically, they constitute a public application. For example, the left of the political spectrum is supportive of wealth redistribution, either as purely secular socialism, or erroneously applying the biblical concept of “having all things in common.”

Similarly, many on the right believe in the classical-liberal precepts established by our founding documents as fundamentally religious in nature, based in life, liberty, and property (pursuit of happiness). We accept these as eternal verities, yet must be careful when it comes to applying them publicly in governance.

The tendency is to feel that since these tenets are fundamental, man having being endowed by his Creator with those inalienable rights, that the codified application of those precepts is inviolable and not subject to compromise in application. For example, the absolute notion of individual liberty would preclude the qualifier that protects the rights of others. We have no more right to do everything we want under the guise of individual liberty, than we do to impinge on the rights of others with no accountability.

Likewise, strict application of the principle of “life” would prohibit capital punishment. And even the concept of personal property is not absolute, since acquisition of property can be regulated so as to prevent appropriation by theft. So even though these are correct fundamental principles, their application is clearly negotiable, or up for compromise, as they are applied politically.

Even our country’s founding document that established the system of governance for the new republic based in those classical-liberal ideals, was hammered out through compromise. Representation in the new federal government was compromised in such a way that the states had equal representation in the upper chamber, and the populace equally represented in the House.

The election process itself, for the two legislative chambers as well as the president, was the result of compromise. And without the compromise on slavery, there would have been no constitution, and consequently, no United States of America. The Constitutional Convention itself was a compromise, since many states wanted to merely revamp the Articles of Confederation, rather than draft an entirely new constitution.

Constitutional-ConventionBy all accounts, the Constitutional Convention was contentious and divided, with the disputation often based on deeply held convictions of the delegates. In what will stand as one of the greatest efforts of compromise in history, the new Constitution was ratified by nine of the thirteen colonies at the convention. State conventions at each of the colonies subsequently ratified the Constitution unanimously, even though several states initially rejected the document. By persuasion, reason and education, every state ultimately voted in favor of the new system of governance.

In short, compromise resulted in the founding of America, even though the principles upon which it was founded were considered by many to be sacrosanct. Did the founders rationalize or diminish their convictions by compromising? Some may have felt so, yet the document that created our republic stands as the crown jewel in application of classical-liberal ideals to principles of governance. Clearly, then, principles and beliefs can be absolute, while application can be negotiable and subject to compromise.

In our private religious lives, we may hold fast to precepts we consider to be absolute and eternally true, yet by our actions, we often betray our convictions. Christians may profess ardently that they “love their fellow men,” yet are they not compromising on that private conviction whenever they act with malice, lack of civility, and vindictiveness toward their fellow man?

ramirez-the-compromiseIf we are to be uncompromising, it should be in our personal convictions, which we have control over, so our outward acts do not betray our principled convictions. But in politics, although we may have convictions in absolute tenets, their public application to governance will always be even more imperfect since they apply publically to all, not just on a personal and individual level. For it’s impossible to project our convictions onto the public realm and have them just as we want them. Definitionally, and a posteriori, they are subject to negotiation and compromise.

As we celebrate this Easter morn, may we resolve to be more uncompromising in our private lives by our outward manifestation of our personal religious beliefs, and more compromising, as long as it’s incremental in the right direction, with our public political ideology. After all, politics is not a religion.

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